33 Rhod^ Island Historical Society. 



Rhode Island's Adoption 



OF THE 



FEDERAL CONSTITUTION 



1790- 1890. 




Book___li ' 




DISCOURSE 



BEFORE THE 



Rhode Island Historical Society 

AT ITS CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION OF 

RHODE ISLAND'S ADOPTION 

OF THE 

FEDERAL CONSTITUTION, 

In Providence, R. I.. May 29, 1S90, 

BY 

HORATIO ROGERS, 



PRESIDENT OF THE SOCIETY 



TOGETHER WITH OTHER PROCEEDINGS ON 
THAT OCCASION. 



Published by the Society. 



STbc |3rofaibc«a ^wss: 
Snow & Farniiam, Pkixtebs. 

37 Custom House Street. 
1S90. 



At tlie Qiiarteily Meeting of the Rhode Island Historical Society, 
held July i, 1890, the thanks of the Society were tendered to the President 
of Brown University for the use of Sayles Memorial Hall; to Professor 
B. W. Hood and the High School Choir for their fine music; to the Ora- 
tor for his eloquent and scholarly discourse; and to all other participants 
in the Centennial Celebration, by the Society, of Rhode Island's Adoption 
of the Federal Constitution, for their able and satisfactory services; and 
it was voted that one thousand copies of the discourse and the other pro- 
ceedings be printed for the use of the Society. 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION 



RHODE ISLAND'S ADOPTION 



FEDERAL CONSTITUTION, 



At the Quarterly Meeting of the Rhode Island Historical 
Society held April 2, 1889, Messrs. William D. Ely and John 

A. Howland and Rev. W. F. B. Jackson were appointed a 
committee to make arrangements for a suitable celebration 
by the Society of Rhode Island's Adoption of the Federal 
Constitution, May 29, 1890. Upon the death of Mr. How- 
land, the Rev. Dr. E. Benjamin Andrews was appointed to 
fill the vacancy, and the committee subsequently reported the 
following order of commemorative proceedings to be holden 
in Sayles Memorial Hall, at 7J2 o'clock p. m. 

The Hon. George M. Carpenter, First Vice-President of 
the Society, and United States District Jiidge for the Dis- 
trict of Rhode Island, to preside. 

Singing of patriotic songs by a choir of pupils from the 
Providence High School, under the direction of Professor 

B. W. Hood. 

Prayer by the Rev. Dr. E. Benjamin Andrews, Second Vice- 
President of the Society, and President of Brown University. 



4 RHODE ISLAND S ADOPTION 

Discourse by General Horatio Rogers, President of the 
Society. 

Benediction by tlie Rev, Dr. Andrews. 
"America," by the choir. 

At the time and place appointed "there was," in the words 
of the Providence Journal, " a large and notable gathering," 
and the prescribed programme was successfully carried out. 
A half-hour of song by the choir was succeeded by the fol- 
lowing 

Prayer by the Rev. Dr. E. Bexjamix Axdrews. 

Eternal Spirit, the Creator of Man and the Ordainer of 
History, we would reverently recognize Thee as we meet this 
evening to set up a memorial pillar upon the great highway of 
time. We thank Thee for the marvellous career of the Com- 
monwealth in which we dwell. We believe it to have been 
of Thy divine counsel and goodness that here upon these 
beautiful shores, from the lirst, and earlier than at any other 
spot upon our planet, men were permitted to worship God 
according" to the dictates of their own consciences ; and that 
the lively experiment was here put forth in faith of erecting 
a constitution of government to have validity only in civil 
things. Almighty God, it is because this tree of religious 
liberty was planted by Thy own right hand that it did not 
wither and die, but rather sent out noble branches graciously 
to beshadow all the States of our beloved land ; yea, and even 
yielded fruit for the life of the other nations of the earth. 
Forgive us, (J Righteous Judge, if some pride should mingle 
with our thanksgiving, as we reflect that the one clear and 
unchallenired contribution which America has made to the 



OF THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION. 5 

civilization of mankind has proceeded from the favored com- 
munity to which we belong. 

O God, our fathers were not always wise. They could not 
on all occasions see the right way or read the signs of their 
times. They could not perfectly make out the future. May 
we, and may all men, judge them with circumspection and 
with charity. They were conscientious ; and we bless Thee 
that Thou didst lead them better than they knew, at last to 
cast in their lot with the great sisterhood of States in com- 
pany with whom they had fought out their liberties. 

Bestow abundance of Thy Spirit upon Thy servant who 
shall at this time array before our thoughts the events of 
that critical period ; so that from his words all present may 
take deeper reverence for the past and firmer hope regarding 
the future. May we learn to trust in principles, even w^hen 
they are new and unpopular ; knowing that as the world is 
ruled by the God of truth, they who are of the truth and of 
the light shall assuredly triumph in the end. Bless the 
Nation of which, happily, we now form part. Bless our 
State. Be with its civil officers from highest to lowest, and 
with all its people. May righteousness, public spirit, and 
lofty ideas and ideals so prevail among us that when in 
another hundred years men gather, as we now gather, to 
review the past, we may not seem altogether unworthy to be 
thought of along with the mighty departed whom we delight 
to honor. Amen ! 

The Hon. George M. Carpenter, who presided, introduced 
the Orator of the occasion in these words : 

Ladies a\d Gentlemen : It is to commemorate the 
accession of the State of Rhode Island to the National 
Government that we have invited your presence this e\'en- 



6 RHODE ISLAND S ADOPTION 

ing, — an event of the greatest import to our own people, 
and not without consequence to the Nation. I say, advisedly, 
the accession of our State ; because the adoption of the 
Constitution by our State was not only later in point of 
time but different in character from the action of most of 
the original States. We joined ourselves to a Nation already 
established and in the full exercise of governmental power, 
and in so doing we yielded our existence as an independent 
and sovereign State. Fully appreciating the character and 
the consequences of this action, we chose a time later than 
that which seemed convenient to other States. Having made 
ourselves part of the new Nation, we may say, without pre- 
sumption, that we have not failed in our allegiance and that 
we have not been wanting to the Nation in council or in the 
field of battle. But we think it becoming that, on this anni- 
versary, and under the direction of this Society, there should be 
made a definitive and authoritative statement of the reasons 
which impelled us first to hesitate with anxious deliberation, 
and afterwards freely and fully to abandon our independent 
character and become an integral part of an indissoluble 
Nation. This declaration should be made in such form that it 
shall be the end of controversy, and that the future student 
of history may require no further material for a just and dis- 
criminating conclusion. For the delivery of such a state- 
ment I now have the honor to present the President of the 
Society, General Horatio Rogers. 



OF THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION. 



General Rogers's discourse. 



Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen : We have met 
to celebrate a great event in the history of Rhode Island. 
On this centennial anniversary of her adoption of the fed- 
eral constitution I shall endeavor to trace the causes of her 
delay in ratifying that instrument, for she was the last of 
the original thirteen states to avail herself of its provisions, 
and she has been bitterly assailed for not more speedily part- 
ing with that independent sovereignty which some of her 
more rapid sister states have since spent four years in bloody 
warfare in seeking to regain. 

Rhode Island, to borrow the language of her General 
Assembly, in 1845, when resenting the interference of the 
Legislature of Maine in matters growing out of the Dorr War, 
so called, " can never . . . forget her past history — her 
early struggles in the cause of religious freedom — her toils, 
and sufferings, and sacrifices, in the War of the Revolution, and 
her jealous determination, at all times, to secure to the peo- 
ple of Rhode Island the exclusive right to manage their own 
affairs in their own way." ^ 

These words of her official representatives afford the key 
to Rhode Island's action on more than one occasion, and, 
broadly speaking, furnish the explanation of her conduct in 
regard to the federal constitution. 

1 Proceedings in the Rhode Island Legislature on Sundry Resolutions of the State of 
Maine, 5 ; also R.I. Acts and Resolves, June Session, 1845, p. 49. 



8 RHODE island's ADOPTION 

Our first settlers were, in a double sense, the children of 
oppression, "wee beinge an outcast people," they wrote, 
when addressing Richard Cromwell, the Lord Protector, in 
1659, "formerly from our mother nations in the Bishops' 
dales, and since from the rest of the new English over zeal- 
ous collonys." ^ Roger Williams and the other founders of 
Providence, the Antinomians who settled at Newport, 
Samuel Gorton, of Warwick, and still later the Quakers, 
were all thrust out of Massachusetts-Bay for conscience sake. 

The hand of oppression reached them even in exile. The 
United Colonies of New England, which, in 1643, formed a 
league for mutual protection, absolutely refused to admit 
Rhode Island to their fellowship. - When the charter of 
1643-4 was granted to this colony the same old persecuting 
spirit of her neighbors prevented for three years an organiza- 
tion under it. Governor Winthrop, of Massachusetts-Bay, in 
his History of New England, ^ tells us that Plymouth sent one 
of her magistrates to Aquidneck Island to forbid the exercise 
of any pretended authority there, claiming it to be under her 
jurisdiction. " Our court," he continues, "also sent to for- 
bid them to exercise any authority within that part of our 
jurisdiction at Pawtuxent and Mishaomet ; and although they 
had boasted to do great matters there by virtue of their char- 
ter, yet they dared not to attempt anything." Connecticut 
claimed jurisdiction over Rhode Island territory west of 
Narragansett Bay, and Massachusetts over that east of it, 
and not until I726'^ was the former obliged by the decision 

1 I R. I. Col. Records, 414. 

'- 2 M.iz;u-d's State Pajiers, 20, 99. 

" Ed. of 1S53, vol. 2, 270. 

•» The order of the King in Council was passed February S, 1726 : 4 R. I. Col. Rec, 370. 
The boundary line was not run by commissioners appointed by the two colonies until 172S ; 
4 R. I. Col. Rec, 400, 411, and 413. 



OF THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION. 9 

of the King in Council to withdraw her assumption ; and it 
was 1746 1 before the latter, likewise, was compelled to yield 
up her usurpation, when the territory embraced within the 
towns of Tiverton, Little Compton, Bristol, Warren, Bar- 
rington and Cumberland, passed from the jurisdiction of 
Massachusetts to that of Rhode Island. 

Notwithstanding the hands of her neighbors were against 
her, the little colony survived and sustained herself. When 
our founders ascertained that they could not preserve their 
liberties within the limits of Massachusetts-Bay, bitter experi- 
ence taught them they could do so beyond her borders. 
When the United Colonies refused to receive the outcast 
colony into their confidence and under their protection, she 
found she could exist without their aid and notwithstanding 
their opposition. These early experiences, and the isolating 
effects of her steadfast adherence to the principle and prac- 
tice of soul-liberty, despite all pressure brought to bear upon 
her, developed in Rhode Island, beyond all the other original 
American colonies, a self-reliance, a force of character, and 
an independence of feeling and action, that enabled her to 
successfully resist influences that would have absorbed or 
overthrown a less sturdy colony. 

At one period Rhode Island was the most radical, and at 
another, the most conservative, of all the old thirteen colonies 
or states. At a bound she leaped far in advance of them all 
in her cardinal principle of soul-liberty. Every one worshiped 
God as he pleased. Baptist, Quaker and Antinomian, Jew 
and Gentile, the observer of the first dav of the week, and 



1 The order of the King in Council was p.issed May 2S, 1746. The Rliode Ishiiid Com- 
missioners appointed to run the eastern boundary line in accordance with the Royal deter- 
mination, reported to the General Assembly at its Januarj' session, 1746-7 : 5 R. I. Col. Rec. 
197 and 199. 



lO RHODE ISLANDS ADOPTION 

the observer of the seventh day, and members of all other 
creeds, here found a safe harbor of refuge. The law called 
on no one to contribute to the support of a minister of 
religion ; and herein, for more than a century and a half, the 
little colony was utterly out of touch and sympathy with her 
neighbors, for in Massachusetts and Connecticut, strange as 
it may seem, not until after the advent of the present cen- 
tury were church and state entirely divorced. The colonial 
charter of Rhode Island, likewise, was unsurpassed in liber- 
ality. That of Connecticut alone approached it, and in 
these two colonies only, until after independence, were the 
governors elected by the people. So liberal were the royal 
charters of these two colonies that they alone survived the 
Revolution, Connecticut abandoning her charter in i8iS, and 
Rhode Island clinging to hers until 1842. The people of 
Rhode Island and their representatives have always exerted 
a stronger direct influence on governmental affairs, and still 
exert it, than in any other colony or state ; and nowhere was 
or still is there a greater jealousy of official or other central- 
ized power. Until within a few years the people directly, or 
through their representatives in General Assembly, elected 
nearly all their officers, and only recently has the Governor, 
to any considerable extent, been invested with an appoint- 
ing power. He never had the veto power, and in many other 
respects his authority is much more circumscribed than in 
other states. This jealousy of centralized power that has 
always existed in colony and state has in some degree sur- 
vived to our day, and is well illustrated in our present consti- 
tution. Each town and city has one senator in the upper 
branch of the General Assembly, and there, Jamestown 
with less than a thousand inhabitants, is the peer of the city 
of Providence with more than 130,000. In the lower house 



OF THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION. I I 

each town has at least one representative, and no town or 
city can have more than twelve, or one-sixth of the whole, 
the body being limited to seventy-two members ; and yet 
Providence contains nearly two-fifths of the whole population 
of the state. ^ No act of incorporation, other than for religious, 
literary, and charitable ]')urposes, or for a military or fire 
company, can be passed by the General Assembly to whom 
it is first presented, but must be continued over another elec- 
tion of members, so that the will of the people may have an 
opportunity to be expressed upon it. In no other state, until 
eighteen months ago, was the elective franchise so restricted. 
Nowhere has town government been so rigidly adhered to. 
Even in Connecticut, state senators are now elected from 
districts regardless of town lines ; and in Massachusetts, 
county ofificers have charge of probate matters and the re- 
cording of deeds. Nowhere on the face of the earth to-day. 
Great Britain and her colonies not excepted, do the old Eng- 
lish common law forms of procedure and practice prevail to 
such an extent as in the courts of Rhode Island. The very 
liberality of her cardinal principle and of her royal charter 
seems to have made her fearful of losing what of liberty she 

J Prior to the constitution of 1S42, ten assistants were anuually elected, who, together 
with the governor, or, in his absence or by his permission, the deputv-governor, con- 
stituted the upper house of the General Assembly. The composition of the lower house, 
until the constitution of 1S42 went into operation, afforded a. most notable illustration of 
Rhode Island conservatism, for by King Charles's charter it was provided tliat Newport 
should have six representatives. Providence, Portsmouth and Warwick, four representa- 
tives each, and every other town and city two rejtresentatives each. However fair tli is 
may have been in i66_\, when the charter was granted, it became utterly disproportionate in 
less than half a century thereafter, as the census of 1708 shows that Providence then had 
more than twice as many inliabitants as Portsmouth, and more than thrice as many as 
Warwick. In iSoo Providence had more inhabitants than Newport, more than three 
times as many as Warwick, more than four times as many as Portsmouth, and more 
than fifteen times as many as Jamestown; and as time went on, the disproportion grew 
greater and greater, but no change was made in the number of re])resentatives till 1S42. 



12 RHODE ISLANDS ADOPTION 

had gained ; so the radicalism of her early days has reacted 
upon her, producing an intense conservatism. 

With such conservatism, and with such jealousy of central- 
ized power, let us turn our eyes to the period of the Revolu- 
tion and see how it manifested itself. Early in May, 
1776,1 the General Assembly withdrew its allegiance from 
the King of Great Britain and enacted that all writs and 
processes in law should thereafter issue in the name and 
under the authority of " the Governor and Company 
of the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence 
Plantations," to which authority alone pidDlic officers were to 
swear fealty. Rhode Island having thus become an independ- 
ent colony, her members of congress, elected at that same 
May session, found in their commissions that year an 
injunction which showed plainly how jealously independence, 
even of her sister colonies, was to be guarded ; for the com- 
mission after authorizing them to consult and advise upon 
measures for the public weal and, in conjunction with the 
delegates from the other colonies, to enter into and adopt 
such measures, contained this significant provision, viz. : 
"-taking the greatest care to secure to this colony, in the 
strongest and most perfect manner, its })resent established 
form, and all the powers of government so far as relates to 
its internal jjolice and conduct of our own affairs, civil and 
religious." This provision contained the political creed of 
the state ; and the real underl}-ing cause of Rhode Island's 
tardiness in accepting so radical a change as the concession 
required by the federal constitution called upon her to make, 
was her jealousy of centi-alized power and the \ein of intense 
conservatism that has run through her later character, mani- 
festing itself so conspicuousl}' by her tenaciously clinging, 

I r U. I. Col. Rcc, 522. 2 7 R. I. Cnl. Kcc, 526. 



OF THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION. 1 3 

until less than half a century ag'o, to the old colonial charter 
with its greatly restricted suffrage; to primogeniture — for the 
eldest son was allowed to vote in preference to other sons ; 
to semi-annual elections of representatives in the Gen- 
eral Assembly ; and to many other antiquated methods ; 
paper money upon which some have laid so much stress being 
merely an incident and not a cause. This jealousy of cen- 
tralized power and this conservatism, it will be observed, 
manifested itself chiefly in the country and not in large 
towns ; exactly in the localities where the same traits of 
character have most manifested themselves on other occa- 
sions. With her bitter experience, Rhode Island was dis- 
trustful of her neighbors. But forty years before, had she 
succeeded in recovering jurisdiction over several towns, after 
having been unjustly deprived of it for more than a century. 
For one hundred and fifty years she had enjoyed utter eman- 
cipation in religious affairs, but the neighbors that bounded 
her by land on every side, were still requiring their inhabit- 
ants to contribute to the support of religious ministers for 
whom many of them cared nothing. When Rhode Island 
was called to merge herself with a dozen other states, of 
which she was the least, and from her diminutive territory 
must, perforce, ever remain so ; when she remembered that 
from her nearest neighbors she had suffered much, and that 
with them, in some respects, she was still not in accord; when 
she reflected that after she had made the concession she could 
never recall it, and that this new and untried bond of union 
might prove a fetter upon that freedom she had braved so 
much to secure, — perhaps it is not to be wondered at that she 
should have been slow to decide. 

Detractors have sometimes ascribed Rhode Island's pro- 
crastination in adopting the federal constitution to a gen- 



14 RHODE ISLANDS ADOPTION 

eral low plane of patriotism pervading her character. Her 
record during the memorable struggle for independence from 
Great Britain proves that such an assumption is utterly with- 
out foundation. Rhode Island has always been intensely 
patriotic. "^This State," wrote William Bradford, Speaker 
of the Rhode Island House of Representatives, to the Presi- 
dent of Congress, in November, 1782, " may be justly ranked 
among the foremost in the common cause, having furnished 
in support of it as many men and as much money, in pro- 
portion to its abilities, as any state in the Union, and much 
more than most of them, and it is still disposed to continue 
its exertions." 

In 1783, the Continental Loan Office accounts show that 
only four states had contributed more to the public treasury 
than Rhode Island, diminutive as she was, and in proportion 
to pojndation none could compare with her. With less than 
a quarter of the inhabitants of Maryland she held half again 
as much of the public debt. Though only one-eighth as 
populous as Virginia she was a public creditor in more than 
double the amount of that great state; and while North 
Carolina and South Carolina each possessed more than three 
times the number of inhabitants of Rhode Island, yet this 
state held upwards of six times more of the public debt than 
the former, and upwards of seven times more than the 
latter.2 

1 Staples's Rliode Island in the Continental Congress, 400. 

= Madison Papers, Gilpin's Ed., 364, 431 ; i Bancroft's History of the Constitution of 
the United States, Si. 

If for any reason exception be taken to tlie Loan Othce accounts as a liasis of conipari. 
son, then it may be stated tliat, according to tlie report of tlie Board of Commissioners 
appointed by Congress to settle the accounts of the resjiectivc states for expenses incurred 
daring the Revolutionary War, of the seven states to whom the United States owed bal- 
ances on the last day of 1780, to which the accounts were made up, those of but three states 
were larger than that of Rhode Island; while six states were largely indebted to the 
United States. 2 Pitkin's Political and Civil History of the United States, 346, 53S. 



OF THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION. 1 5 

But it has been urged that the delegates from Rhode 
Island were very delinquent, at the last, in attending the Con- 
tinental Congress. This was rather the fault of the mem- 
bers than of the state, for the delegates were duly elected, 
and if they neglected their duties, they but followed the ex- 
ample of members from other states. William Ellery, one 
of our delegates in Congress, in a letter to Governor 
Greene, dated February i, 1784, relating to the ratification 
of the treaty of peace with Great Britain, 1 said : — " For the 
want of nine states we have not been able to transact busi- 
ness of importance. After having wrote many pressing 
letters, and sent off two expresses, nine states were at length 
collected, and the definitive treaty ratified. As soon as this 
was done, one of the Delaware members left Congress ; and 
there have been only eight states represented since his de- 
parture. Georgia has not had a delegate on the floor for a 
twelve month. New Hampshire has had but one ever since 
I have attended. New York is not at present represented, 
and New Jersey has but one member." 

To the multiplicity of causes for Rhode Island's delay in 
adopting the federal constitution, no one, perhaps, made a 
larger contribution than David Howell, and yet, paradoxical 
as it may seem, he was in favor of it. He was a native of 
New Jersey and a graduate of Princeton. Removing to this 
state soon after graduation, he was first a tutor and then a 
professor in Rhode Island College. He studied law and be- 
came famous for his wit, learning and eloquence. For three 
years he was a member of Congress, and in 1786 he was one 
of the judges of the court in the great case of Trevett vs. 
Weeden, that adjudged some of the extravagant paper money 
legislation of that year unconstitutional. Subsequently he 

1 Staples, 46S. 



1 6 RHODE island's ADOPTION 

was at different times Attorney-General of the State, United 
States District Attorney, and for the last fourteen years of 
his life United States District Judge. P^rom 1790 to 1S24 he 
held the chair of law in Brown University. He was a mem- 
ber of Congress from 1782 to 1785, and there, it was, that his 
unflinching advocacy of state rights, often contending single- 
handed against the whole house, roused bitter opposition 
both to him and to his state. Strong and pronounced in his 
views, he was fearless and outspoken in maintaining them. 
Policy and conciliation formed no part of his character. He 
was uncompromisingly opposed to granting to the Confedera- 
tion the right to lay a duty on imports. The system then in 
force of calling upon the states for requisitions of money had 
proved a miserable failure. Through lack of funds to carry 
on the government the utter dissolution of the Confederation 
seemed imminent. On the third day of February, 1781, Con- 
gress had recommended to the states to grant it the power to 
lay an impost of five per cent., and by the articles of confeder- 
ation each state must agree to its adoption. All but Georgia 
and Rhode Island granted the power; the former never acted 
on the recommendation, but the latter utterly refused to sanc- 
tion it. Appeals were dispatched from Congress to this state, 
and finally a committee was raised to come ni person, but at 
this juncture the great state of Virginia repealed her assent, 
so the mission was abandoned, for while a little state, like 
Rhode Island, could, perhaps, have been forced to yield to 
pressure, no one dreamed of attempting it with a great state 
like Virginia. The impost question continued a bone of 
contention until the adoption of the constitution. So bitter 
was the feeling in Congress against Howell for his part in 
the matter, that attempts were made to break down his char- 
acter and reputation and to drive him from that body. At 



OF THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION. 1 7 

one time a vote of censure was sought to be passed because 
of a letter he had written ; at another an effort to unseat him 
was made ; but though these attempts proved futile, yet a 
prejudice was excited in some quarters which was never erad- 
icated.^ A few extracts from his letters will illustrate the 
tenacity of his purpose, the intensity of his utterances, the 
success of his efforts, and the bitter opposition and personal 
hostility he awakened. "-I cannot find words strong 
enough," he says, " to express my indignation at the base 
means, the intrigue, the chicanery, the deceit, the circumven- 
tion, the fetches, the side winds, the bye blows, the am- 
bushes, the stratagems, the manoeuvring, the desultory attacks, 
the regular approaches, the canting and snivelling, as well as 
swearing and lying, and, in short, the total prostitution of 
every power and faculty of body and mind and office, to 
carry a point, which I need not name." Again he writes : 
"3 The states are now generally astonished that they should 
ever have been led into such an error as to give Congress 
the vast and uncontrollable powers contained in this ordinance. 
Virginia, South Carolina and North Carolina repealed their 
hasty grants, as did the lower house of Massachusetts. 
Georgia and Rhode Island never granted the request of Con- 
gress." The intense hostility Mr. Howell roused by his 
course is portrayed in this final extract from his correspond- 
ence. " '^ I have been in hot water," he writes, "for six or 
seven weeks, — ever since business has been taken up in ear- 
nest. Thank God, we have hitherto carried every point. I 
have received two written challenges to fight duels ; one 
from Col. Mercer, of Virginia, the other from Col. Spaight, of 

1 Writiiitfs of William G. GoikUird, Vol, I, i66, note: Howell's Concspoiuleiice in 
Staples. 

2 St.iples, 4S9. 3 Staples, 4S7. ■» Staples, 514. 



10 RHODE ISLANDS ADOPTION 

North Carolina. The Journals will give their political char- 
acters. I answered them that I meant to chastise any insult 
I might receive, and laid their letters before Congress." 
That I may be sure not to overstate the influence exerted by 
Mr. Howell at this important period, I shall borrow a few 
sentences from Chief Justice Staples, and thus fortify my- 
self with the authority of his profound knowledge of Rhode 
Island affairs. " ^ The proceedings of this State in relation 
to the fi\-e per cent, impost," says the late Chief Justice, 
" were in perfect accordance with her political creed, pub- 
lished in May, 1776, and reiterated in October, 1782. The 
grant in the terms proposed, interfered very materially with 
' the internal police and conduct ' of State affairs ; for the 
impost proposed, was to be collected within the state by 
officers not appointed bv its authority and not under its con- 
trol. The discussion of State rights, which grew out of it, 
confirmed the citizens of the State in their original creed. 
The arguments of Mr. Howell, in favor of these rights, 
acquired a greater force from the apparent attempt in Congress 
to put him down because of his opinions honestly and ear- 
nestly expressed. . . Is it not more than probablethat the 
state right doctrine so eloquently urged by Mr. Howell, in- 
flamed and gave strength to the prejudices which imbued a 
majority of the citizens of Rhode Island to oppose that Con- 
stitution, when it was proposed for their acceptance ? " 

The price paid b)' the American states for independence, 
in addition to the blood shed, was impoverishment and ex- 
haustion. The expense of carrying on the war had been 
vast : currency had depreciated : taxation had been heavy ; 
and the channels of industry had been greatly disturbed, 

1 St;iples, 429. 



OF THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION. 1 9 

and, in some cases, destroyed. The flow of specie from the 
United States was alarming. The imports from Great 
Britain in 1784 and 1785 amounted to $30,000,000, while the 
exports thither did not exceed $9,000,000, leaving a balance 
of $21,000,000 against us.^ In some states laws to stay 
the collection of debts were passed ; in others tender laws 
were made, or enactments to enable the transfer of property 
in settlement of debts. In Massachusetts and New Hamp- 
shire an insurrectionary spirit was rife, and in the former 
the famous Shay's Rebellion was only put down by the 
shedding of blood, and after the sessions of the courts had 
been interfered with, and other excesses committed. Rhode 
Island was no exception to the rule, and she was worse, 
rather than better off than her sister states, as her suffer- 
ings during the Revolutionary War had reduced her to sad 
straits. For three years during the war a British army had 
occupied the island of Rhode Island and some other por- 
tions of the state, and a British fleet had held the mouth 
of Narragansett Bay, thus practically sealing up the state. 
Bristol and Warren had been partially destroyed. Commerce 
had been annihilated.- The ancient and once wealthy town 
of Newport, which had rivalled Boston and New York in 
commercial importance, was ruined, and out of nearly one hun- 
dred and fifty sail she sent to sea in 1774, three only were at 
sea in March, 1782. ^ " Near two thousand persons,"'* wrote 
Governor Greene from Providence, in 1779, "who have been 
driven from Rhode Island by the enemy, are now among us, 
the greater part of whom subsist by charity. The most 
obdurate heart would relent to see old age and childhood, 

1 Pitkin's Statistic.-il View of the Commerce of the United St.ites, 30, 31. 
-Staples, 1S2, 209, 212, 213, 220; S R. I. Col. Rec, 49S-500. 
3 Howell to Gov. Greene : Staples, 3S2. 
* S R. I. Col. Rec, 500. 



20 RHODE ISLANDS ADOPTION 

from comfortable circumstances, reduced to the necessity 
of begging for a morsel of bread ; and even that they cannot 
often obtain ; not for the want of a sympathetic feeling in 
the inhabitants for their distresses, but merely from their 
inability to relieve them." In the same year the Board of 
War wrote : — " ^ The State is burdened with debt, reduced to 
poverty, , . . and we are almost upon the verge of a 
famine." 

In the terrible pressure succeeding the struggle for inde- 
pendence, some of the states again resorted to emissions 
of paper money in the hope of relief. Among these were 
New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Georgia, North Carolina and 
South Carolina. When the Bank of the United States re- 
fused to receive Pennsylvania's bills as of equal value with 
its own, the state repealed the bank's act of incorpora- 
tion.- The Rhode Island General Assembly, early in 1786, 
had granted assent to Congress to enact an impost law, and 
at the same time had refused to grant a petition for an emis- 
sion of paper money. At the election in April of that year 
the opponents of the impost and the friends of paper money 
coalesced and carried the state.-^ An emission of ^/^ 100,000 
in paper currency was then voted, and drastic measures were 
adopted to secure its being received in payment of debts and 
in exchange for merchandise. During the summer and early 
autumn of 1786 great confusion was caused by the attempt 
to enforce these harsh and unjust measures, but in the 
famous case of Trevett ts. Weeden, tried in October of that 
year, the court, composed of judges, some of whom were 
avowed paper money men, and all of whom had been elected 
by the General Assembly that passed the acts, unanimously 
pronounced some of their provisions unconstitutional. After 
this decision stores which had been closed, were re-opened, 

1 Slaples, 221. - I Bancroft, 233-237. •" Staples, 549. 



OF THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION. 21 

and trade went on much as usual.' One would suppose from 
what has been written relatini; to paper money in Rhode 
Island, and the effect of it upon her action in regard to the 
federal constitution, that she was the only state that had 
issued such currency, and that those states that had not 
emitted any since the Revolution, were prompt and unan- 
imous in their adoption of the federal compact. 

The Confederation had proved weak and inefficient. 
Trade was languishing, and there was no uniform system 
for commercial regulation. Public credit had sunk to the 
lowest ebb, and anything worthy the name of government 
was more delusive than real. Every one agreed that some- 
thing should be done to strengthen the government, and to 
this end the State of Virginia, in January, 1786, proposed a 
convention of states to be held at Annapolis in the follow- 

1 The late vener.nble Wilkins Updike (brother of the secretary of the Rhode Island 
convention that ratified tlie federal constitution), in his History of the Narragansett 
Church, at page 250, in writing of the Hon. Joseph Hazard, says : — " He was elected to 
many important offices by the people, and sustained them with honor. Although a deter- 
mined partisan, he never permitted his political attachments to sway him from the princi- 
ples of right. His motto was ' to do right, and let consequences take care of themselves.' 
He was on the bench of the Supreme Court of the State, when the General Assembly 
enacted the celebrated 'Paper Money Laws' of 17S6, and was one of the paper money party. 
As the party put the judges into office, it was expected that the judges would support the 
party. But when the question of the constitutionality of those laws came before the court 
for decision in the case of Trevett ts. Weeden, in which cause Gen. Varnum made his 
great and eloquent effort, this court stood firm in the defence of the cause of law in their 
country, and declared the Paper Money Tender Laws unconstitutional and void. Their 
fiery partisans in the General Assembly ordered the court to be arraigned before them for 
a contempt of legislative power, and they were required to give their respective reasons 
for overthrowing the laws of the Legislature that had created them." 

When the five judges of the " Superior Court of Judicature, Court of Assize, and 
General Gaol-Delivery " were summoned before the General Assembly, at its September 
session, 17S6, to render their reasons for adjudging an act of the General Assembly un- 
constitutional and void, only three of them attended, the other two being unwell, so they 
were directed to appear at the October session. At this latter session of the General 
Assembly, according to Gen. Varnum's report of the case of Trevett vs. Weeden, and 
the case of the judges growing out of the same, at page 43, Judge Hazard delivered the 
following remarks : — " My brethren have so fully declared my sentiments upon this occa- 



22 RHODE ISLANDS ADOPTION 

ing September, for the purpose of framing such regulations of 
trade as might be judged necessary to promote the general 
interest,^ and our so-called paper money General Assembly, 
at its June session in that year, promptly elected dele- 
gates.- The result of the discussion in Congress on the 
report of the Annapolis Convention was the passage in 
February, 1787, of a resolution calling for a convention of 
delegates to meet at Philadelphia in May, for the sole and 
express purpose of revising the articles of confederation 
and reporting such alterations and provisions therein as 
should render them adecpiate to the exigencies of the gov- 

sion, that I have nothing- to add by way of argument. It gives me pain tliat the conduct 
of the Court seems to have met the displeasure of the Administralicm. But their oliliga- 
tions were of too sacred a nature for them to aim at pleasing Init in tlie line of their dutv. 
" It is well known that my sentiments have fullv accorded with the general system 
of the Leg:ishiture in emitting the paper currency; but I never did, 1 never will, deiwrt 
from the character of an lionest man, to support anv measures, however agreeable in them- 
selves. If there could have been a prepossession in mv mind, it must have been in fa\our 
of the act of the General Assembly ; but it was not possible to resist the force of con. 
viction. The opinion I gave upon the trial was dictated bv the energy of truth : I thought 
it right — I still think so. Be it as it may, we derived our understanding- from the Almighty, 
and to Him only are we accountable for our judgment." 

General \'arnum, in referring to the result of Trevelt vs. Weeden, in his report of that 
case, says on page 37 : — "The consequences of the foreiioing determination were imme- 
diately felt. The shops and stores were geneially opened, and business assumed a cheer- 
ful aspect. Few were the exceptions to a general cnngratulation, and lavish indeed were 
the praises bestowed upon the Court. The dread and the idea of informations were 
banished together, while a most perfect confidence was placed in judicial security. The 
paper currency obtained a more extensi\e circulalion, as every one found himself at 
liberty to receive or refuse it. The markets, wliich had been illy supplied, were now 
amply furnished, and the spirit of industry was generally ditVused." 

The forcing acts or penal laws respecting [)a|)er money were formally repealed by the 
General Assembly of Rhode Island at its December session, 17S0. II. I. Acts and 
Resolves, Dec. Ses., 1780, p. _>j. . 

iThe importance of the Annapolis Convention is portrayed by Bancroft in these words : — 
" Congress having confessedly failed to find ways and means for carrying on the govern- 
ment, the convention which had been called at Annapolis became the ground of hope for 
the nation." \'ol. I., 267. 
- Staples, 56.'. 



OF THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION. 23 

ernment and the preservation of the union. ' Thus origi- 
nated the famous convention which formed the present 
federal constitution. 

Much stress has been laid upon the fact that Rhode 
Island was not represented in that convention ; but that she 
was not, seems to have been due to accident rather than to 
any party bias or design, notwithstanding that the party 
sometimes called the paper money party, sometimes the 
country party, and sometimes the anti-federal party, then 
was, and for many years afterwards continued to be, in 
power. The General Assembly in March, 1787, voted not 
to send delegates, but this body had been elected the year 
previous, before the convention had been called. In April, 
1787, a new General Assembly was chosen when the ques- 
tion of the Philadelphia Convention was before the electors, 
and at its session in May, the House of Representatives by 
two majority voted in favor of sending delegates, while the 
Senate non-concurred by the same majority, two Senators 
being absent, who, if present, would have increased the 
majority to four. The next month the matter came up again, 
when, strange to relate, the action of the two bodies was 
exactly reversed, the house, composed of sixty-four members, 
voting by a majority of seventeen against sending dele- 
gates, and the Senate, consisting of the governor, deputy 
governor and ten assistants or senators, by a majority of 
five being in favor of sending delegates.- Thus both houses 
of the so-called paper money party, which had been elected with 
a full knowledge that a convention was to be held in Phila- 
delphia, had within two months of their election, voted for 
and against, sending delegates, each house when it reversed 

1 Journals of Congress, published by Folwell, iSoi. Vol. 12, pp. 12—14. 
- Staples, 572. 



24 RHODE ISLAND S ADOPTION 

its former vote, doing so by a much larger majority than 
marked its original action. In both May and June the mem- 
bers were identically the same. No explanation of these 
contradictory votes has come down to us, but whatever it 
may have been, it effectually dissipates the loose assertion so 
often indulged in, that the prominent party in the General 
Assembly was from the start, bitterly opposed to taking any 
part in the constitutional convention. Moreover it had sent 
delegates to the Annapolis Convention, and the Philadelphia 
Convention was likewise called simply to amend the articles 
of confederation, even the members themselves of that 
convention not dreaming till after they had been in session 
for weeks that anything else than such amendment might be 
the result of their labors. Nine days elapsed after the Phila- 
delphia Convention met before a bare quorum could be 
secured, and, sitting with closed doors, it concluded its 
work September 17th. It consisted of sixty-five members, 
ten of whom never attended. Thirty-nine signed the con- 
stitution, and sixteen who attended did not sign. Although 
the vote of eleven states represented on the last day of the 
convention, was recorded as unanimous in favor of it, the 
vote of each state being determined by a majority of its del- 
egates, yet it is to be noted that, owing to absence or refusal, 
the full delegations of but three states actually signed the 
instrument. 1 

Great opposition greeted the new constitution. With 
our century of experience under it, we, who have rea- 
lized its beneficent workings, may well wonder at the 
hostility it encountered, but it came not from any one . 
state alone, or from any particular class in the community. 
Patriots, orators, and statesmen, men whose fame has made 

1 I Elliot's Debates on the Federal Constitution, 124, 125. 



OF THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION. 25 

their names as familiar as household words, refused togi\'e it 
their support. In Virginia the opponents were especially 
distinguished. Among them were Patrick Henry, a former 
governor of the state, whose burning eloquence is known 
wherever the English language is spoken ; Thomas Nelson 
and Benjamin Harrison, both signers of the Declaration of 
Independence and ex-governors, the latter of whom was an- 
cestor of two presidents of the United States ; Richard 
Henry Lee and George Mason, both violent opponents of 
paper money, the former having been president of Congress, 
and the latter a member of the constitutional convention, 
and as such had refused to sign the instrument ; and then 
too, there was James Monroe, afterwards president of the 
United States. Among the Massachusetts opponents were 
Elbridge Gerry and Nathan Dane.^ Gerry was a signer of 
the Declaration of Independence, and he had refused to sign 
the constitution in the convention that framed it. Subse- 
quently he became governor of Massachusetts and vice- 
president of the United States. Dane was the framer of 
the famous Ordinance of 1787 for the government of the 
North West Territory providing for the exclusion of slavery. 
In New York the opposition was extremely violent. A major- 
ity of her delegates had opposed the constitution in the con- 
vention, and had withdrawn from that body before its 
adoption there.- The governor of the state. Gen. George 
Clinton, was active in his disapproval.-' With such an array of 
great names, and I have mentioned but a few of the oppo- 
nents, it is idle to impute to paper money the cause of the hos- 
tility. Some objected for one reason, some for another, but 
much of the opposition sprang from the absence from the 

I 2 B.-incroft, 226 ct post ; 300 et post. 5 Elliot, 553. - 1 Elliot, 4S0 et post. 

3 2 Bancroft, 340 et post, 469. 



26 RHODE island's ADOPTION 

instrument of a declaration of rights asserting and securing 
from encroachment the great principles of civil and religious 
liberty and the inalienable rights of the people. ^ Indeed, 
Thomas Jefferson at one time wrote : — " ~1 wish with all my 
soul that the nine first conventions may accept the new con- 
stitution, to secure to us the good it contains; but I equally 
wish that the four latest, whichever they may be, may refuse 
to accede to it till a declaration of rights be annexed ; but," 
he added, "no objection to the new form must produce a 
schism in our union." 

Of the state conventions called to ratif\- the constitution 
there were but three in which the delegates were unanimous 
in its favor, and two of these, Georgia and New Jersey, were 
so-called paper money states, having made emissions of that 
currency since the close of the Revolution. 

In the Massachusetts Convention it was extremely doubt- 
ful whether the friends or the opponents of the constitution 
were in the ascendancy.^ Bancroft tells us that " the rural 
population were disinclined to a change.""^ For nearly a 
month discussion continued in that body, and then only by 
the gentlest and most conciliatory persuasion, and after rec- 
ommending nine amendments, was the instrument adopted 
by a majority of but nineteen in a convention of over three 
hundred and fifty members.-^ It should be remembered that 
Massachusetts had issued no paper money since the Revolu- 
tion, and when in May, 17S6, a petition for an emission of 
that currency was presented, out of one hundred and eight- 
een members in her House of Representatives it received 
but nineteen votes f' so the opposition in that state could 

1 2 Bancroft, 227, 227 ei post. ■• 2 Bancroft, 259. 

2 2 Bancroft, 275. ^' 2 Elliot, x-'iei post ; 2 Bancroft, 261. 
2 2 Bancrott, 260. '^' i Bancroft, 250 r/ post. 



OF THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION. 



^ I 



hardly be attributed to paper money. Every county west of 
Essex, Suffolk, Plymouth and Barnstable, or the extreme 
eastern tier, cast a majority against adopting the constitu- 
tion.' The majority of the delegates of Bristol County, 
which bounds this state on the east, was opposed to it. In 
the great County of Worcester, as large territorially as the 
whole State of Rhode Island, and which bounds this state on 
the north, forty-three delegates were opposed to it, and only 
eight favored it.- Surely, Rhode Island was not so much 
worse than her neighbors, after all. 

New Hampshire, another New England state not ranked 
as paper money, had delayed sending delegates to the con- 
stitutional convention for a month after the time fixed for 
the day of meeting, and her state convention, after taking 
a recess of four months, ratified by but eleven majority, and 
only after recommending twelve amendments.-'' 

In Virginia the contest lasted for more than three weeks, 
when adoption was secured by eighty-nine to seventy-nine, a 
majority of ten, and that too with recommendations of 
amendment.'* 

In the great state of New York, where the impost ques- 
tion was the stumbling block, the convention was in session 
for more than a month, and ratification was finally carried by 
thirty to twenty-seven, a bare majority of three ; and to obtain 
this result a recommendation of a series of amendments had 
to be included.^ 

1 2 Elliot, 17S et post. Tlie present County of Norfolk then formed piut of Suffolk 
County : 3 Barry's History of Massachusetts, 29S. 
= 2 Elliot, iSoetpost. 

3 I Bancroft, 276; 2 Bancroft, 277 ct post, antl 31S. i Curtis's Constitutional History of 
the United States, 32S. 

4 3 Elliot, I, 657, 662. 

5 2 Elliot, 205, 413. 



28 RHODE island's ADOPTION 

In Nortli Carolina a convention was called in July, 1788, 
and after remaininff in session for three weeks and acreeino: 
upon a long declaration of rights and twenty-six amend- 
ments, it voted by a hundred majority to adjourn without 
either ratifying or rejecting, but desiring that some further 
action should be taken to amend the instrument before 
voting" to adopt it. Seventeen months later, on November 
21, 1789, she ratified it, being the last state but our own to 
do so.^ 

Rhode Island, therefore, was, by no means, the only state 
where deep rooted opposition to the constitution existed. 
During all this exciting period the question of calling a con- 
vention in Rhode Island had from time to time been intro- 
duced into our General Assembly, and seven times had been 
voted down. 

The country party was in power, and we have seen that 
elsewhere as well as in Rhode Island, it was the rural popu- 
lation that hated change. The action of the other states 
had been closely watched and their objections noted. One 
thing strikes a Rhode Islander very peculiarly in regard to 
the adoption of the federal constitution. The people were not 
to vote directly upon it, but only second-hand through dele- 
gates to a state convention. No amendment to our state 
constitution, even at this day, can be adopted without a 
majority of three-fifths of all the votes cast, the voting being 
directly on the proposition, and a hundred years ago no state 
was more democratic in its notions than Rhode Island. 
Although the Philadelphia Convention had provided that the 
federal constitution should be ratified in the different states by 
conventions of delegates elected by the people for that pur- 
pose, upon the call of the General Assembly, yet this did not 

1 4 Elliot, 242, 251. 



OF THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION. 29 

accord with the Rhode Island idea, so in February, 1788, the 
General Assembly voted to submit the question whether the 
constitution of the United States should be adopted, to the 
voice of the people to be expressed at the polls on the fourth 
Monday in March. 1 The federalists fearing they would be 
out-voted, largely abstained from voting, so the vote stood two 
hundred and thirty-seven for the constitution, and two thou- 
sand seven hundred and eight against it, there being about four 
thousand voters in the state at that time.- Governor Collins, 
in a letter to the president of Congress written a few days 
after the vote was taken, gives the feeling then existing in 
Rhode Island, in this wise : — "Although this state has been 
singular from her sister states in the mode of collecting the 
sentiments of the people upon the constitution, it was not done 
with the least design to give any offence to the respectable 
body who composed the convention, or a disregard to the rec- 
ommendation of Congress, but upon pure republican princi- 
ples, founded upon that basis of all governments originally 
derived from the body of the people at large. And although, 
sir, the majority has been so great against adopting the Con- 
stitution, yet the people, in general, conceive that it may 
contain some necessary articles which could well be added 
and adapted to the present confederation. They are sen- 
sible that the present powers invested with Congress are incom- 
petent for the great national government of the Union, and 
would heartily acquiesce in granting sulticient authority to 
that body to make, exercise and enforce laws throughout the 
states, which would tend to regulate commerce and impose 
duties and excise, whereby Congress might establish funds 
for discharging the public debt."-' 

A majority of the voters of the country was undoubtedly 

1 staples, sSo. = Staples, 590. 3 jq r. i. CdI. Rcc., 291. 



30 RHODE ISLAND S ADOPTION 

against the constitution, but convention after convention was 
carried by the superior address and management of its 
friends. 1 Rhode Island lacked great men, who favored the 
constitution, to lead her. In Virginia, for the constitution, 
were George Washington and James Madison, John Mar- 
shall, and Edmund Randolph, the governor of the state. 
James Monroe wrote to Thomas Jefferson : — " Be assured, 
Washington's influence carried this government." ~ Gouver- 
neur Morris, in a letter to Washington himself, says: — "I 
have observed that your name to the new Constitution has 
been of infinite service. Indeed, I am convinced that if you 
had not attended that Convention, and the same paper had 
been handed out to the world, it would have met with a 
colder reception, with fewer and weaker advocates, and with 
more and more strenuous opponents. As it is, should the 
idea prevail that ^'ou will not accept the Presidency, it would 
prove fatal in many parts." ^ And yet, with this great leader- 
ship in Virginia, the constitution in that state was adopted 



1 2 Bancroft, 25S, 265, 20(3, 277, 317, 340, 35.), 360, 469, 47S, 4(^5 <•/ fosi. 4 IHldreth's History 
of the United States, 35. Cliief Justice Marsliall, liimself a member of tlie Philadelphia 
Convention, says: — " So balanced were parties in some of them," (/. c. the states) "that 
even after the subject had been discussed for a considerable time, the fate of the constitu- 
tion could scarcelv be conjectured; and so small, in many instances, was the majority in its 
favor, as to afford strong- ground for the O]>inion that had the intiuence of character been 
removed, the intrinsic merits r>f the instrument would not have secured its adoption. 
Indeed, it is scarcely to be doubted that in some of the adopting states, a majority of the 
people were in the opposition. In all of them, the numerous amendments which were pro- 
posed, demonstrate the reluctance with which the new government was accepted ; and that 
a dread of dismemberment, not an approbation of the particular system under consider- 
ation, luul induced an acquiescence in it." 5 Marshall's Washington, 132. 

The following sentence from Bancroft shows the bitterness of the opposition in some 
quarters. Referring to Pennsylvania's ratification, he writes: — "The ratification gave 
unbounded satisfaction to all Pennsylvania on the eastern side of the Susquehanna; beyond 
that river loud murmurs were mingled with threats of resistance in arms." 2 Bancroft, 252. 

- 2 Bancroft. 317. 

" I Elliot, 506. 



OF THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION. 3 1 

by but ten majority, after sundry amendments had been rec- 
ommended. In New York there were Alexander Hamilton, 
John Jay and Robert R. Livingston for the constitution; and 
in Massachusetts, Theophilus Parsons, Theodore Sedgwick 
and Fisher Ames, Ex-Governor liowdoin and Generals Heath 
and Lincoln ; and then, too, there were John Hancock and 
Samuel Adams ; the latter two having been far from strong 
for the constitution at the start, were all the better adapt- 
ed to carry others to the conviction at which they finally 
arrived. 

Who was there of towering prominence in Rhode Island 
for the constitution, to lead the people at that trying period ? 
Gen. Nathaniel Greene had removed to Georgia where he 
had died. Gen. James M. Varnum, a gallant Revolutionary 
officer, an eloquent lawyer, and a member of Congress, 
might, perhaps, under other circumstances, have exerted 
much influence for good, but he removed to Illinois in June, 
1788, having been appointed by Congress one of the judges 
of the North West Territory ; and there he died in 1789, at 
the early age of forty years.^ A thorough partisan, he ruined 
any influence he might have had with Rhode Island anti- 
federalists by writing a violent letter to the president of the 
Philadel]:)hia Convention denouncing the General Assembly 
and many citizens of the state.- 

In some close states, where the leaders were wise, gentle 
means were resorted to. Thus Bancroft tells us : — " The 
federalists of Philadelphia had handled their opponents 
roughly ; the federalists of Massachusetts resolved never in 
debate to fail in gentleness and courtesy." ^ In regard to the 
Virginia Convention he writes : — "The discussions had been 
temperately conducted till just at the last," and then he pro- 

1 Updike's Memories of the Rhode Island Bar, 145 ct post. - 5 Elliot, 577. 

2 2 Bancroft, 261. 



32 RHODE ISLAND S ADOPTION 

ceeds to narrate an ebullition by Patrick Henry. Again he 
says : — "After the vote was taken, the successful party were 
careful not to ruffle their opponents by exultation." i In 
Rhode Island the federalists, instead of trying to convert 
their opponents by "gentleness and courtesy," as in Massa- 
chusetts, heaped abuse upon them, like Varnum ; and the 
whole federal party of the country joined in the same spirit 
of denunciation. John Temple, the British consul-gen- 
eral to the United States, wrote from New York to the 
Marquis of Carmarthen as early as June 7, 1787: — "The 
little state of Rhode Island hath already gone so retrograde 
to the articles of confederation, and to the subsequent orders 
and doings of congress, and having not thought proper to 
send delegates to the convention, it is already seriously 
talked of, the annihilating of Rhode Island as a state, and to 
divide that territory (I mean the government of it) between 
Massachusetts and Connecticut."- George Ticknor Curtis, 
writing of the opposition in Rhode Island, says : — "^Ridicule 
and scorn were heaped upon them from all quarters of the 
country, and ardent zealots of the Federal press urged the 
adoption of the advice which they said the grand seignior 
had given to the king of Spain with respect to the refractory 
states of Holland, namely, to send his men with shovels and 
pickaxes, and throw them all into the sea." This being the 
treatment allotted to the people of Rhode Island, would it 
be strange if it reacted and made them more tenacious and 
persistent in their course.' 

The requisite number of states having ratified the consti- 
tution, a government Was formed under it April 30, 1789. 
Our General Assembly, at its September session in that 

1 2 I5:uicrort,3i4, 316. ■ = 2 Bancroft, 426. 3 i Curtis, 6»S. 



OF T[IF. FF.nERAL CONSTITUTION. 33 

year, sent a long Ictteri to Congress explanatory of the situ- 
ation in Rhode Island, and its importance warrants my 
quoting a part of it. "The people of this state from its 
first settlement," ran the letter, "have been accustomed 
and strongly attached to a democratical form of government. 
They have viewed in the new constitution an approach, 
though perhaps but small, toward that form of government 
from which we have lately dissolved our connection at so 
much hazard and expense of life and treasure, — they have 
seen with pleasure the administration thereof from the 
most important trusts downward, committed to men who 
have highly merited and in whom the people of the United 
States place iiiiboiiiidcd confidence. Yet, even on this circum- 
stance, in itself so fortunate, they have apprehended danger 
by way of precedent. Can it be thought strange, then, that 
with these impressions, they should wait to see the proposed 
system organized and in operation, to see what further 
checks and securities would be agreed to and established 
by way of anicuduients, before they would adopt it as a con- 
stitution of government for themselves and their posterity ? 
These amendments we believe have already afforded some 
relief and satisfaction to the minds of the people of this state. 
And we earnestly look for the time, when they may with clear- 
ness and safety, be again united with their sister states under a 
constitution and form of government so well poised, as neither 
to need alteration or be liable thereto by a majority only of 
nine states out of tJiirtcen, a circumstance which may possibly 
take place against the sense of a majority of the people of 
the United States. We are sensible of the extremes to which 
democratical government is sometimes liable ; something of 
which we have lately experienced, but we esteem them tem- 

1 lo R. I. Col. Rec, 3S6. 



34 RHODE ISLAND S ADOPTION 

porary and partial evils, compared with the loss of liberty 
and the rights of a free people." 

Rhode Island never supposed she could stand alone. In 
the words of her General Assembly in the letter just re- 
ferred to: — "They know themselves to be a handful, com- 
paratively viewed." This letter, as well as a former one I 
have quoted from, showed that she, like New Hampshire, 
Massachusetts, New York, Virginia, and North Carolina, 
hoped to see the constitution amended. Like the latter 
state she believed in getting the amendments before ratifi- 
cation, and so strong was the pressure for amendments that 
at the very first session of Congress a series of amendments 
was introduced and passed for ratification by the states, and 
Rhode Island, though the last state to adopt the constitu- 
tion, was the ninth state to ratify the first ten amendments 
to that instrument now in force ; ratifying both constitution 
and amendments at practically the same time.^ One can 
hardly wonder at the pressure for amendments to the orig- 
inal constitution when the amendments have to be resorted 
to for provisions that Congress sliall make no law respecting 
an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free use 
thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, 
or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to 

1 lUcUey's Conshtution of tlie United States, i.\, ^. 

Tlie constitiitidii ot llic Uniled Status was ratifud, mil liy the people viitiiig directly 
iipoM the (luestiori (if ratiliealion, as is the case witli aiiuiulmeiits to our l{hode Ishiiid 
state coMslilution, but liy conventions of delei^ates elected by the pcojile, and became 
oj)Ciative upon the slates ratifying' it, when lalilied l>v tlie conventions ot nine states. 
Amendments, however, were, by the terms of the constitution, to be ratified by state 
legislatures, and wlien ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the states were to 
be binding u|)on all the states even though the legislatures of some of the states never 
ratified them at all. 

The Rhode Islaiul (Convention ratified the federal constitution, May iij, 1790, and the 
legislature of Rhode Island ratified the tirst ten anieiidnients June 15, 1790, being at 
the first session of the General Assembly after the ratification of the constitution. 



OF THE FEDERAL CONSTITITTION, 35 

petition the government iov a redress of i^rievanees ; that 
excessive bail should not be required, nor excessive fines 
imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted ; for 
right of trial by jury in civil cases; and for other highly 
important provisions. ^ 

North Carolina, desj^airing of obtaining the desired 
amendments, ratified the constitution November 21, 1789, 
and entered the constitutional union, so Rhode Island 
stood alone. How long could she continue so to stand, and 
could she, single-handed, hope to obtain amendments before 
ratification ? 

The two leaders of the dominant party in Rhode Island 
were John Collins, the governor of the state, and Jonathan 
J. Hazard, a member of the House of Representatives from 
South Kingstown. Governor Collins had been patriotic 
during the war, had been a member of Congress for five 
years, and was a thoroughly honest and high-toned man. - 
Jonathan J. Hazard took an early and decided stand in favor 
of liberty in the struggle for independence. In 1776 he 
appeared in the General Assembly from Charlestown, and 
the next year he was elected paymaster of the Continental 
Battalion and joined the army in New Jersey In 1778 he 
was re-elected a member of the General Assembly and con- 
stituted one of the Council of War ; and he continued a 
member of the House most of the time during the Revolu- 
tion. He was likewise a delegate in Congress in 1787 and 
1788. He was a natural orator, with a ready command of lan- 
guage, and was subtle and ingenious in debate. He was for 
a long time the idol of the country interest, manager of the 



1 See Appeiuli.x. 

■- Appletoii's Cyclop;tdi;i of" Am. Hii)!^. See ;ils(> Governor ("olliiis's Correspoiulenee in 
Staples, and in U. I. Col. Kecords. 



36 RHODE island's ADOPTION 

state, leader of the legislature, aiul, indeed, the political 
dictator of Rhode Island. He was the most efficient leader 
of the paper money party in 1786 and their ablest debater 
in the General Assembly. Later he was the leader of the anti- 
federalists and a fiery opponent of the constitution. 1 

The situation in Rhode Island had become critical indeed. 
The Congress of the new United States had declared that 
after January 15, 1790, Rhode Island was to be treated as a 
foreigner and a stranger. Newport, Providence, Bristol and 
Westerly were clamorous for the constitution. Something 
must be done and that quickly. In October, 1789, before 
North Carolina had ratified, the motion for a convention had 
been voted down in the Rhode Island General Assembly by a 
vote of thirty-nine to seventeen, but when that body next met 
in January, 1790, the aspect of affairs had vastly changed. Five 
days after the beginning of the January session the House by 
five majority voted to call a convention, but the Senate 
non-concurred, and passed an act requesting the freemen 
to instruct their representatives in the General Assembly 
whether a convention should be called. In this the House 
refused to concur by fourteen majority, and thus matters 
stood when the Assembly adjourned until the next day. 
Great excitement prevailed on Sunday and the unusual spec- 
tacle of the General Assembly sitting on the Sabbath and 
the great interest in the measure under consideration drew a 
throng to the State House. Another bill for a convention to 
be held March ist was introduced in the House and passed by 
thirty-two to eleven. About noon the vote was taken in the 
Senate on concurrence, and, as the senators were evenly 
divided, all eyes were turned towards Governor Collins, as 
with him rested the decision. After reviewing the proceed- 

* Updike's History of the X;inagiiiisett Cluiicli, 32S et post. 



OF THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION. 37 

ings in relation to a convention and the action of other 
states, he conchided by referring to the peculiar situation 
of this state and cast his vote for concurrence ; and so it 
was settled that a convention to consider the question of 
ratifying the federal constitution was to be called. In 
view of the progress made, the time for treating Rhode 
Island as an alien was deferred by Congress until April 15th J 

February 8th, the delegates were elected, and the conven- 
tion assembled at South Kingstown on the day designated, 
all of the seventy members being present. Foity-two were 
members of the General Assembly, comprising the leaders 
of both houses, among them Jonathan J. Hazard. Four had 
held the office of deputy-governor, five had been delegates 
to the Continental Congress, and the whole constituted a 
thoroughly representatixe body.- The convention sat from 
March ist to March 6th making little progress, when it ad- 
journed to meet at Newport on the fourth Monday in May.^ 
During the recess all the leverage and influence that could 
be brought to bear to affect votes, were put in operation. 
One of the most remarkable results of the adjournment was 
the changed attitude of Jonathan J. Hazard, who had up to 
that time been the leader and forefront of the opposition. 
Though he voted against ratification to the last, yet his 
opposition had become so neutralized that he ceased longer 
to take an active part.-* 

The convention re-assembled at Newport May 25th, and as 
the State House was utterly insufficient for the accommoda- 
tion of the great numbers that manifested their interest by 
their attendance, the convention removed to the Second 
Baptist Church, where for three days the great debate went 

' Shipks, 625-630. - Staples, 633, 63^. •'' Stiii)lcs, 6^0, 656. 

•* Updike's History of the Nairagaiiselt Church, 329. Staples, 663-666. 



38 RHODE island's ADOPTION 

on, until at last 011 Saturday, May 29th, at twenty minutes 
past five in the afternoon, the vote was taken and the con- 
stitution was ratified by a vote of thirty-four to thirty-two, 
and at the same time a series of amendments was recom- 
mended.' The Providence Gazette of June 5, 1790, tells 
us : — " Many more members of the convention were con- 
vinced of the propriety of so adopting the constitution, and 
the majority would, it appears, have been much larger, had 
not a number of the members been restricted by instruc- 
tions. Had it been compatible with the public good to have 
adjourned the decision for a short time only, these instruc- 
tions would, undoubtedly, have been reversed ; but as there 
was a majority for the adoption, and the situation of the 
state extremely critical, it was deemed expedient to take the 
question." The news of the ratification arrived in Provi- 
dence by express at eleven o'clock at night and was immedi- 
ately announced by the ringing of bells and the firing of can- 
non.- Rhode Island speedily elected senators and repre- 
sentatives to Congress, and thus became a member of the 
constitutional union. 

Rhode Island has been attacked and abused for her tardi- 
ness, beyond all bounds of reason. She was a sovereign 
state, the mistress of her own destiny, and she had both a 
technical and a moral right to pursue such course as she 
deemed for her own best good. She had violated no right 
of her sister states ; she had broken no pledges to them. 
On the other hand all the states had solemnly pledged their 
faith that the union formed under the articles of confeder- 
ation should be perpetual, and that no alteration should at 
any time be made in any of those articles unless confirmed 

1 St;il)lus, 659, 67^-'>S;). J AnioUrs History of Ivhodc Island, 562. 
- Providence Gazette, June j, 1790. 



OF THE FRnERAI, CONSTITUTION. 39 

by the legislature of every state. However satisfactory the 
express provisions of the constitution might have been, yet 
it was provided that three-fourths of the states might amend 
them at pleasure, and, truly, the conferring of such power was 
a leap in the dark. Rhode Island never opposed union. 
On the contrary she always favored it, being among the first 
to propose it ; and as we have seen she was the second of all 
the states to instruct her delegates in Congress to ratify the 
articles of confederation providing for a perpetual union. 
She had performed her duty as well as most of the states, 
and in the struggle for independence she had been second 
to none. Her state sovereignty had been planted in exile 
and fostered by persecution : its corner-stone rested on soul- 
liberty ; and its preservation and integrity had been assured 
only by her sturdy resistance to the aggressions of her 
neighbors, and she was unwilling to transmit to posterity 
either that sovereignty impaired, or with the right to impair 
it vested in three-fourths of her sister states. To the many 
writers failing in a just perception of the true state of 
affairs, that have heaped reproaches upon Rhode Island, 
especially during the last few years embraced within the 
centennial period of our government, I would commend 
these words of George Bancroft : — " Neither of the two 
states which lingered behind remonstrated against the 
establishment of a new government before their consent ; 
nor did they ask the United States to wait for them. The 
worst that can be said of them is, that they were late in 
arriving,"^ 

Having once entered the constitutional union, Rhode Island 
has loyally adhered to it, and the blood of her sons has been 

1 3 Bancroft, 350. 



40 THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION. 

lavishly shed, and the money in her treasury has been boun- 
tifully expended in preserving it. Rhode Island may be con- 
servative and peculiar, but, if a tree is to be judged by its 
fruit, where can a richer harvest be found than here within 
her borders ? Thriving towns, cities and villages stud her 
rugged soil. Her rivers on their course from the hill-side to 
the sea everywhere pay tribute to industry. Her whirling 
spindles and fiying shuttles produce fabrics of surpassing- 
excellence. Her forges and her workshops furnish alike the 
most ponderous machines and the most delicate mechanisms. 
The skill of her artisans, in unrivalled profusion, fashion 
forms of beauty out of silver and gold. Churches and 
school-houses abound, educating for this world and pointing 
onward and upward to the next. Literally in no state in 
the union are there so many inhabitants to the square mile 
of land area, as here upon her territory. i Carpers may cavil 
at her, detractors may traduce, — but as well might they strive 
to pluck the love of soul-liberty from the hearts of men, as 
permanently to be-little her character or obscure her fame. 

' r,v the Census cil" tlie United St;Ues for iSSo, Rhode Ishmd Inid 254.87 inhabitants to :i 
square mile of hind smfice, wliile Massaehnsetts, the next most denselv jiopuhited state, 
had but J2I .78 inhabitants to a square mile of hind surface. Compendiuni of the Tenth 
Census of tlie United States, iSSo. [-"art 2, 1413. 



APPENDIX 



The statement has sometimes been made that inasmuch as the United 
States possessed no powers except tliose conferred by the constitution, the 
prohibitions contained in a number of the first ten amendments of that 
instrument weie practically nugatory, and therefore unnecessary. The 
wisdom of our fathers, however, in insisting upon those prohibitions, 
would seem to be beyond question in view of the fact that what are termed 
the incidental, or implied, or auxiliary powers embraced in the constitu- 
tion, have proved to be the ones most open to dispute and fraught with the 
greatest danger. 

Chief Justice Varshall, in McCulloch vs. Marvland, in the United States 

■'• "... 

Supreme Court, 4 Wheaton's Rep., 407, said : — "A constitution, to contain 

an accuiate detail of all the subdivisions of which its great powers will 

admit, and of all the means by which they may be carried into execution, 

would partake of the prolixity of a legal code, and could scarcely be 

embraced b\' the human mind. It would probably never be understood by 

the public. Its nature, therefore, requires that only its great outlines 

should be marked, its important objects designated, and the minor 

ingredients which compose those objects be deiluced from the nature of 

the objects themselves." Mr. Justice Strong, in the famous Legal Tender 

Cases, so called, also in the United States Supreme Court, 12 Wallace's 

Rep , 532, used these words : — " We do not expect to find in a constitution 

minute details. It is necessarily brief and comprehensive. It prescribes 

outlines, leaving the filling up to be deduced from the outlines." Later 

in the same opinion, on page 550, this language occurs: — "We are 

accustomed to speak for mere convenience of the express and implied 

powers conferred upon Congress. But in fact the auxiliary powers, those 

necessary and appropriate to the execution of othei" ])owers singl v described, 

are as expressly given as is the power to declare war, or to establish 

uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcy. They are not catalogued, no 

list of them is Inade, but they are grouped in the last clause of section 

eight of tile fir.-st article, and granted in the same words in which all other 



4-2 APPENDIX. 

powers are granted to Congress." The last clause of section eight of the 
first article of the federal constitution, referred to, reads as follows : — 
''And to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying 
into execution the foregoing powers, and ail other po'wers vested by this 
constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department 
or officer thereof." 

The wide divergence of opinion ot'ten existing among the judges of the 
United States Supreme Court, upon cpiestions of constitutional law, 
engenders grave doubts whether the federal constitution has not at times 
been construed to mean exactly the reverse of what its framers intended. 
This divergence is strikingly illustrated in the decisions relating to paper 
money, or legal tender, so called. In 1870, the United States Supreme 
Court decided that the Acts of Congress known as the Legal Tender Acts, 
were unconstitutional when applied to private contracts made before their 
passage; that is to say, that Congress could not constitutionally pass a 
law making paper money a legal tender for the payment of debts contracted 
before the passage of such lavv. Hepburn z>s. Griswold, S Wallace's 
Rep., 603. In 1S71, the same court, with a somewiiat changed member- 
ship, overruled the decision of the year before and decided precisely the 
contrary. Legal Tender Cases, 12 Wallace's Rep., 457. 

The utter contradiction and confusion often attending iudicial construc- 
tion of constitutional provisions, is signally displayed in Juilliard vs. 
Greenman. another Legal Tender Case, decided in the United States 
Supreme Court in 1SS4, and reported in no U. S. Sup. Ct. Rep., 421. 
Mr. Justice Gray, in delivering the opinion of the court in that case, on 
page 447, used this language : — " It appears to us to follow, as a logical 
and necessary consequence, that Congress has the power to issue the 
obligations of the United States in such form, and to impress upon them 
such qualities as currency for the purchase of merchandise and the pay- 
ment of debts, as accord with the usage of sovereign governments. The 
power, as incident to the power of borrowing money and issuing bills or 
notes of the government for money borrowed, of impressing upon those 
bills or notes the quality of being a legal tender for the payment of private 
debts, was a power universally understood to belong to sovereignty, in 
Europe and America, at the time of the framing and adoption of the 
Constitution of the United States. * * * The power of issuing bills of 
credit, and making them, at the discretion of the legislature, a tender in 
payment of private debts, had long been exercised in this country by the 
several Colonies and States; and during the Revolutionary War the States, 



APPENDIX. 43 

upon the recoinineiidation of the Congress of the Confederation, had 
made the bills issued by Congress a legal tender. The exercise of this 
power not being prohibited to Congress by the Constitution, it is included 
in the power expressly granted to borrow money on the credit of the 
United States." 

On the other hand, Mr. Justice Field, in delivering a dissenting opinion 
in the same case, page 466, et post, spoke in this wise : — " But beyond and 
above all the objections which I have stated to the decision recognizing a 
power in Congi-ess to impart the legal tender quality to the notes of the 
government, is my objection to tiie rule of construction adopted by the 
court to reach its conclusions, a rule which fully carried out would change 
the whole nature of our Constitution and break down the barriers which 
separate a government of limited from one of unlimited powers. When 
the Constitution came before the conventions of the several States for 
adoption, apprehension existed that other powers than those designated 
might be claimed ; and it led to the first ten amendments. When these 
were presented to the States they were preceded by a preamble stating that 
the conventions of a number of the States had at the time of adopting the 
Constitution expressed a desire, ' in order to prevent misconception or 
abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should 
be added.' One of them is found in the Tenth Amendment, which declares 
that ' the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor 
prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to 
the people.' The framers of the Constitution, as I have said, were 
profoundly impressed with the evils which had resulted tVom the vicious 
legislation of the States making notes a legal tender, and they determined 
that such a power should not exist any longer. They therefore prohibited 
the States from exercising it, and they refused to grant it to the new 
government which they created. Of what purpose is it then to refer to the 
exercise of the power by rhe absolute or the limited governments of Europe, 
or by the States previous to our Constitution. Congress can exercise no 
power by virtue of any supposed inherent sovereignty in the general 
government. * * * There is no such thing as a power of inherent 
sovereignty in the government of the United States. It is a government 
of delegated powers, supreme within its prescribed sphere, but powerless 
outside of it. In this country sovereignty resides in the people, and 
Congress can exercise no power which they have not, by their Constitution, 
intrusted to it; all else is withheld. It seems, however, to be supposed 
that, as the power was taken from the States, it could not have been 



44 APPENDIX. 

intended that it should disappear entirely, and therefore it must in some 
•vvaj adhere to the general government, notwithstanding the Tenth 
Amendment and the nature of the Constitution. The doctrine, that a 
power not expressly forbidden may be exercised, would, as I have 
observed, change the character of our government. If I ha\e read the 
Constitution aright, if there is any weight to be given to the uniform 
teachings of our great jurists and of commentators previous to the late 
civil war, the true doctrine is the very opposite of this. If the power is 
not in terms granted, and is not necessary and proper for the exercise of 
a power which is thus granted, it does not exist." 

The uncertainty and confusion too often attending constitutional 
construction, as already shown, clearly demonstrate the wisdom of our 
fathers in insisting that religious liberty, freedom of speech and of the 
press, the right of the people peaceably to assemble and petition the 
government for a redress of grievances, of trial by jury in civil cases, 
that excessive bail should not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, 
nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted, together with other important 
rights, — should be f.v/i;-t'5.'c/r guaranteed to the people as they are in the first 
ten amendments to the federal constitution, and that the\' should not be 
left to any mere implication. 

When Rhode Island adopted the constitution eight states had ratified 
the first ten amendnients, religious liberty, so far as the United States 
were concerned, being guaranteed in the first amendment. Rhode Island 
was the ninth state to ratify those amendments, but it was known when 
she took action, that the requisite number of states to make them oper- 
ative would be obtained. When, therefore, Rhode Island's attitude 
towards soul-liberty is taken into consideration, is there not good ground 
to question whether the little commonwealth, after all, could have con- 
sistentlv ratified the constitution earlier than she did .' 



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